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Whisky Bob

Dev live stream from a new player's perspective.

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Hello,Ā 
I am fairly new to Atlas,Ā my buddies and I started this high-seas adventure about a month ago. In that time we were having a blast and were under the impression that this game is having a bright future despite its current population crisis. When I have heard the news about the new lead designer I was all hyped up. I was waiting for the upcoming dev stream like crazy - after all, you have marketed this stream as if it was the Second Coming of Jesus.

I was feeling the incoming "wind of change" to the point I have decided to participate in the forum thread collecting questions from the player base, in that thread it was the first time I realized how many issues this game has and I saw some real, constructive and important questions being asked there - for sure they will make it to Wednesday's Stream,Ā after all the new lead designer would be reason enough to touch on the current state of the game.Ā 

"THE Stream" finallyĀ happened and my naive hope for this project going "full speed ahead" died along with it. Seriously, last time I have seen such a question-dodging non-answer vague dev stream was in the early Elder Scrolls Online days and that nearly killed the game (but Zenimax Online Studios has a massive financial backing and tons of developers onĀ payroll so they eventually recovered, I sincerely doubt you guys have such resources).Ā 

You know that situation when you are working at a corporate office, and they force you to do some bullshit presentation meeting or you will be excluded from "Granola Fridays" for a month? So you come up with some bullshit pie-chart about "Vertical integration of best collaborative practices" or some other non-topic nobody cares about? This is what this dev stream was.Ā 

I work at a software company and I know it is sometimes very hard to come up with a meaningful developer stream, but doing a pre-recorded dev stream with a new lead designer that announced big changes and then filling it with pie charts, "maybes" and "we are thinking about it" was honestly disrespectful towards your backers. Forum topic (you have marketed heavily)Ā was filled with some genuine questions yet you have ignored the issues completely.Ā 

From what I have gathered from the gameĀ chat, discords etc. people do not bother to log-in to the game as they have no idea if the servers will be wiped or not. I'm a new player, I have just started and I have no business to hope for a wipe as I have not experienced the game fully yet, but the "wipe or no wipe" question seems to be tearing whatever is left of your community apart. You announce "big changes" (altho we still have no idea what those changes will be as you have talked about them so vaguely Todd Howard would be proud) but refuse to specify what those changes will be and you have left all the possible, heavily requested, content information in a realm of speculation.Ā You also announceĀ Xbox cross-play yet you do not touch on the wipe issueĀ 

The stream had over one thousand viewers, the chat was nothing else but a wall of people asking about any information regarding the wipe, yet you have ignored it completely with this pre-recorded nonsense and chose to answer questions aboutĀ cat whiskers and color palettes - if I was a veteran player I would feel insulted. Do you guys have such high hopes for your Xbox launch you believe you can ignore the current players? Cause it sure looks like that and let me tell you - with that attitude whatever player base you will accumulate through the console launch won't last for long.Ā 

After watching this stream I am on a crossroads, I am not sure if I want to continue playing a project with no vision and with such poor communication, at this point I think even Fallout 76 does a better job atĀ managing their community and I never thought it was possible to be worse.Ā Ā 

It seems that your Galleon is sinking and all you have is medium planks.Ā 

Edited by Whisky Bob
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Yep, they did not want to be there.

Many moments that were disrespecting and even insulting to their player base. I was disgusted.

So many cringe moments.

No details.

Just make xbox version.

They don't play the game is the cause of the problem (sound familiar, guys? lol)

The gally is sinking, they don't even play the game, and creating new variation of medium planks to fit a gally is resource intensive so they would like to not drown but maybe they have to.

So sad to think that that nonsense was pre-recorded and the best they could do.

Edited by eeeceee
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Ive been playing since Christmas. I put a lot of hopes on yesterdays Q&A. Those hopes disappeared long before the pre-recorded session did. There was a lot of if's and maybe's, but no real hard fact of what was going to happen. No new content till after Xbox goes live? That is a kick in the face to the long term players. The so called road map should have been happening right from the beginning. Stage one should have been in place from day one not 8 months later. Stage 2 was so hit and miss about what we might get. when new ships were mentioned all we really heard was "well we would like to add new ships but the are to much hard work". Not disputing that, but hasn't the ground work for them already been done with the existing ones? You know how the system works as you have 4 pretty poor ships already. The pie chart seemed as if it was put there to make it look like there was going to be some major changes. IF that is true they need to be happening now not after the launch of Xbox.

The game needs new life. We thought we would get that with a new lead dev but all we are getting is more of the same. Mega update 3 has been ditched or become "Mega lets add Xbox and ignore the current players update". This is not what we want to hear at all.

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3 hours ago, Whisky Bob said:


It seems that your Galleon is sinking and all you have is medium planks.Ā 

That is hilarious.Ā 

And very appropriateĀ 

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That is exactly why I did not even bother!

I did not watch the stream but was discussing it with a friend who did.Ā  As soon as he mentioned PVP, I knew this game's recovery will be a lot more unstable. Everyone (PVPers) knowĀ that balancing PVP is nearly impossible. I know we should not compare WoW to Atlas but look at how long it took WoWĀ to get to where they are right now. Most can still argue that PVP is even broken now. I can tell you that melee combat with locking mechanic is absolutely useless in my opinion.Ā  Anyways, if this continues, I will be looking for a different game to play...

Edited by RipPaw
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1 hour ago, RipPaw said:

That is exactly why I did not even bother!

I did not watch the stream but was discussing it with a friend who did.Ā  As soon as he mentioned PVP, I knew this game's recovery will be a lot more unstable. Everyone (PVPers) knowĀ that balancing PVP is nearly impossible. I know we should not compare WoW to Atlas but look at how long it took WoWĀ to get to where they are right now. Most can stļ»æill argue that PVP is evļ»æen broken now. I can tell you that mļ»æelļ»æļ»æee comļ»æbat with locking mechanic is absolutely useless in my opinion.Ā  Anyways, if this continues, I will be looking for a different game to play...ļ»æļ»æļ»æļ»æļ»æ

I would compare this more to No Man's Sky which managed to recover mostly by admitting what is wrong, facing the criticism and being honest. For a small indie dev with a small playerbase honesty goes a long way (of course it took them a while, to be honest.Ā But hey - we all make mistakes).Ā I have a weird itch on my brain,Ā Ā that all this vagueness of their stream is hiding some sort of uncomfortable truth about their actual plans. All I know is that if they plan to carry on like this they can just trash the entire dev-stream idea as they will just continue separating themselves from their playerbase.Ā Ā 

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I have a weird itch on my brain, because when I was watching the video, I paused and rewind at the end of every sentence, multiple times, and I think of all the things I want to say about all the vagueness, about how these guys just don't want to be here, and I think about all the things I know about their history. They are hiding the uncomfortable truth that they don't have an actual plan. They just kinda want that xbox money it seems. Unfortunately, lots of what appears to be bile is quite accurate. I just hope that the devs can watch the stream again, rewinding at every sentence, reading the chat, analysing everything, while knowing that people who bother to type anything at all about ATLAS most likely do so because they enjoy what-is-the-start-of-what-could-be-a-game, want it to be even better and wish for it to succeed.

- the video was titled roadmap

- we need a roadmap because parts of the game are broken

- the devs say they are busy working on xbox

- xbox release comes before the roadmap

- there is no details for a roadmap until after xbox

- they've obviously been busy on xbox for months now

- to go around in circles, we are at a 'crossroads' and therefore need a roadmap

- all we have is xbox version which might mean more players, yes that's kinda exciting, in a short term stupid non nonsensical near sighted way, yay it was so exciting to see Jesse commenting on that in that reddit thread

We had all of this talk about "a plan" to end the vagueness before the last wipe occurred. What has happened since? Superficial posts about mega updates that is actually just cats and err i cant remember now.Ā 

I really hope our new lead designer has the best of luck. Please dont nerf stuff. For example - you say this is a gear based game, and you want to turn it into a skill based game. Why not have both? Why not a gear based game where skill is also involved, so that it is also a skill based game, yet also an incredibly deep gear based game, so deep to the point that people who have the best stuff make those who just started not want to play.Ā 

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I didn't watch the stream because I knew it was going to be all smoke and mirrors. Based on what I've read about the "live" stream and what I've seen in the last few months, this ship is sinking and we they don't have enough mats to repair it. They are just going to try to eek a few more dollars from the console sales and then scuttle this mofo to the bottom of the ocean.Ā 

Ā 

Edited by Sydhart
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honestly, i pretty much give up on this game's dev team for the foreseeable future..

so many greatĀ  suggestions and very well thought out questions were offered to them... plenty of time to make a decent presentation...Ā and what did they do with the opportunity to redeem themselves after they finally made a good move and announcedĀ a new lead designerĀ to the last 0.01% of their actualĀ player base that remained loyal to the causeĀ ...Ā 

a fuckin garbage graphic with a couple bullet points... calling it a fuckin "road map"... and they didn't answer anything of substance except notify the community that the game is STILLĀ substantiallyĀ going NOWHERE and will be going nowhere, for a long time...Ā 

that stream was a complete and utter pile of steaming bullshit.. i literally puked in my mouth watching it. the final nail in the coffin in my mind.

i tried so hard to keep the faith/hope/denial going... im fuckin done.

Good bye atlas, ill probably pick you up in a year or if xbox launch is crossplay... but as i see it right now, fuck that.

Hello star citizen. no matter how long it takes, at least they're using their communities support, efforts and time correctly instead of spitting in ourĀ faces like grapeshot is doing.Ā 

Edited by Enki Anunnaki
striking the point home.
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The "live stream" (we're not fucking retarded, it was CLEARLY pre-recorded) was hands-down the absolute worst thing I've seen from a developer team in 25 years of gaming.Ā  It was disrespectful to the community and backers and was absolutely shameful to watch.Ā 

This is coming from someone with 1600 hours in...I want this game to succeed so bad it HURTS, but I'm seriously still trying to put into words how utterly disappointing the live stream was....thanks for that, guys.

Just keep burning bridges and ignoring us...99% of the original buyers gone/refunded and you're still treating your paying customers like trash.

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1 hour ago, Mithrian said:

The "live stream" (we're not fucking retarded, it was CLEARLY pre-recorded) was hands-down the absolute worst thing I've seen from a developer team in 25 years of gaming.Ā  It was disrespectful to the community and backers and was absolutely shameful to watch.Ā 

This is coming from someone with 1600 hours in...I want this game to succeed so bad it HURTS, but I'm seriously still trying to put into words how utterly disappointing the live stream was....thanks for that, guys.

Just keep burning bridges and ignoring us...99% of the original buyers gone/refunded and you're still treating your paying customers like trash.

in my opinion the stream had its ups and downs, it was clearly an upgrade from the improvised and lack of thematic past streams, we went from a normal room with jack drinking wisky on the background to a pirate room set up in accordance to the thematic.

that being said the fact that they prerecorded the whole thing was a mistake, as well as the fact that as you mentioned they havent fixed any of the current atlas problems in a very long time and just as you i feel insulted by the fact that they stoped working on pc to focus on xbox.

however at least now they have been honest and i am pretty sure that honesty comes by the hand of the new lead designer, however honesty hurts sometimes and they are 100% responsible for that so i am kinda happy that now i can let go instead of being there sitting eternally waiting for an answer that would have never come otherwise

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22 hours ago, The D Legacy said:

however at least now they have been honest and i am pretty sure that honesty comes by the hand of the new lead designer, however honesty hurts sometimes and they are 100% responsible for that so i am kinda happy that now i can let go instead of being there sitting eternally waiting for an answer that would have never come otherwise

Um.

Lol. How heartwarming.

Didn't you uninstall the game after you got banned from discord and ragequit etc?

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Well,Ā 
Thanks to the impromptu discord live chat after the stream players could learn a little bit more about their actual plans - mostly thanks to Dollie. I do hope, however, that they will learn from this and next dev streams will beĀ live,Ā will contain actual information, and answers to actual questions. I don't mind vague meaningless streams that are nothing more than glorified ads, butĀ afterĀ the launch when you have (hopefully) thousands of players and hope to lure more. At the current stage, the remaining few players you have cannot be bought with such BS.Ā 

I wish you guys to improve your communication in the future. Hopefully, when I come back post-Xbox launch, I will be able to see a game with a clear vision and direction that I will be glad to support.Ā 

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I felt the same, I was hyped up for the stream then felt let down yet again, I suppose I should have saw it coming really.

When they said roadmap, I thought they were going to lay out a more detailed roadmap at least. What they presented was just rough ideas of what they want to do which tells me they have no clue on where to take the game.

TheirĀ mistake was basing the game around Ark, it should never have been like this and should have been standalone. I heard somewhere it was supposed to be a DLC for Ark originally and they changed direction to add ships and things to make it separate but still same principles of Ark.

You just can't help feeling if the game was designed by a top MMO team it would probably be totally different and heading in the right direction.

I hope it ends up like no man sky and they turn things around but even then it's going to take a few years yet to get anywhere near it. I won't be back until more things have been implemented but I will be very interested to know just how the release of xbox goes and how many cross platform players stay around after the wipe.

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3 hours ago, photek said:

the game will be dope

believe me.

Someone's itching for another temp ban.

*rolls eyes*

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13 hours ago, DannyUK said:

I felt the same, I was hyped up for the stream then felt let down yet again, I suppose I should have saw it coming really.

When they said roadmap, I thought they were going to lay out a more detailed roadmap at least. What they presented was just rough ideas of what they want to do which tells me they have no clue on where to take the game.

TheirĀ mistake was basing the game around Ark, it should never have been like this and should have been standalone. I heard somewhere it was supposed to be a DLC for Ark originally and they changed direction to add ships and things to make it separate but still same principles of Ark.

You just can't help feeling if the game was designed by a top MMO team it would probably be totally different and heading in the right direction.

I hope it ends up like no man sky and they turn things around but even then it's going to take a few years yet to get anywhere near it. I won't be back until more things have been implemented but I will be very interested to know just how the release of xbox goes and how many cross platform players stay around after the wipe.

It wasn't their mistake to make an asset flip of ark, the game was designed by artists and animators however, its always just going to struggle to be anything but a doll house where you're playing around with dollies, actual game play mechanics are just swapped in and out willy nilly with no thought into how they work, vaguely planned and pitched as hype to their customers....

Edited by eeeceee

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7 hours ago, photek said:

the game will be dope

believe me.

Sorry, I don't know you well enough to put that kind of faith in you. Also, does anyone really say dope anymore? I thought that went out with the 90's.

17 hours ago, DannyUK said:

I heard somewhere it was supposed to be a DLC for Ark originally and they changed direction to add ships and things to make it separate but still same principles of Ark.

Yes, nearly everyone has heard this, but as far as I'm aware, it is nothing but pure speculation. It might be true, it might not. I'm personally inclined towards not, but the main point is, many people have asserted this as fact without a shred of proof that is indeed the case. Take that for what it's worth.

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On 9/3/2019 at 3:07 AM, eeeceee said:

Um.

Lol. How heartwarming.

Didn't you uninstall the game after you got banned from discord and ragequit etc?

iĀ  uninstalled the game yes, yet i dont know what that has to do with anything that i said.

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